Council wardens could be dishing out parking tickets to motorists in streets across Oxfordshire instead of police.

The county council wants to extend the special parking area scheme in force in Oxford across the whole county -- a move which would allow district councils to take control of both on and off-street parking.

Parking enforcement in Oxford is already contracted to a private company by the county council and new figures released this week revealed that almost 50,000 tickets were dished out in a year.

David Robertson, county council cabinet member for transport, said taking control away from the police was the only way to make parking enforcement a high priority. He added: "The police do have traffic wardens about but it is not their highest priority. Unless you have enforcement, parking restrictions are a waste of time.

"As you get more and more congestion, residents are looking to have some sort of control over their area."

Mr Robertson said it would take two years to go through the process of establishing special parking areas across the county.

He added: "Effectively it will be the same situation as Oxford city and, as far as I am aware, all the districts are in favour."

South Oxfordshire District Council's cabinet members backed the proposal at a meeting last week.

They were told by officers that one key advantage was 'that the council could use any surplus income from charges for a wider range of activities than just car park improvements as at present'.

District council chief executive David Buckle said if the plans came to fruition all options were open -- including using council wardens or hiring a private company.

He added: "Once the decision has been made by the county it will open up a lot of questions and debate on how we deal with parking -- it could even mean us joining with the Vale of White Horse to have a united policy."

On-street parking enforcement in Oxfordshire is currently dealt with by the police.

But since 1997, parking in Oxford has been in the hands of the county council, which contracts the service to private company Control Plus.

Figures released this week revealed that 48,534 tickets were handed out to motorists in the city last year, amounting to at least £1m in fines.